Tillinghast: A Novel
by Clare Cavenagh (Author)
Product details
ASIN : B0FSCHXG6Y
Publisher : Viking
Publication date : June 23, 2026
Language : English
Print length : 256 pages
ISBN-13 : 979-8217060825
A dark and utterly original literary horror debut, following a priest whose bloodthirsty life has extended far longer than any mere human's—and is upended when a stranger comes to town
Stutley Tillinghast lives a solitary life, ostensibly as the minister of a remote rural parish in Rhode Island. For many decades now, what little human contact he’s allowed himself has been brief, frenzied and bloody, and has always ended in a shallow grave in his cellar. There’s a name for what he is, but he prefers not to use it: it is simple enough that he has his needs, and that when they become unbearable, he fulfils them. In his long and lonely life, he has met only one other like him—the woman he still yearns for, the one who made him what he is.
Then a girl arrives, searching for him. She has his last name, and bears an uncanny resemblance to that woman, awakening memories Tillinghast had long suppressed; the connection he feels for her is immediate and overwhelming. She’s also sick, very sick, with symptoms Tillinghast recognizes all too well...and only he knows how to cure her
Inspired by the real events of the New England vampire panic of the nineteenth century, TILLINGHAST is a novel to sink your teeth into: at once a gripping, atmospheric horror that turns the classic monster narrative on its head; a literary work of exceptional prose about giving into--or resisting--our impulses; and a remarkably moving father-daughter story that will leave you unexpectedly hopeful—and rooting, despite your every instinct, for the killers.
About the Author
Clare Cavenagh spent her childhood in Erica, Australia, and her adolescence in Fribourg, Switzerland. She read English and Renaissance literature at the University of Cambridge, and now lives in London where she works as a copywriter. Her short fiction and criticism have been published in Editions L'Hèbe, Cambridge Quarterly and Eucalyptus Lit. Tillinghast is her first novel.
